Don’t go away, the night is still left….
There was a time when Durga puja meant to me spending time in Mausumi Athelatic Club, a para club, with unfailing regularity, almost whole day and half night. Four days continuously. From Saptami to Dashami.
Sasthi was an add-on to the impending four-day carnival. I used to arrive at the para mandap as soon as the mics started croaking in Sasthi afternoon. Loose connection might have produced the hiccup of mics.
After some effort from mic-man, the sound got steady. The voice became distinct. And the song went on song.
I reckoned it was Lata Mangeshkar’s unmistakable voice which emerged from the jarring loudspeakers.
Don’t go away, the night is still left. The song pleaded. The singer was at her pyrotechnic best.
The song benumbed me with its overpowering melody.
Days kept on churning out months and months kept on rolling out to years.
Suman Chattopadhaya concluded his musical evening, a decade later, at Sanskriti Bhavan, in his first- ever performance there with This much is for today, we would talk the rest later….
I was made to be stranded in the aisle of the hall.
The mind was then different, different was the hope and so were the words/ Don’t know if they would embrace love….
Salil, you made a boy crazy for music in that long-ago afternoon. With Tagore, you have rendered him helpless, hopeless, hapless in the abyss of melody when Time makes him a man.
The man is not complaining. He is only pleading with you, Don’t go away.
How can he live without melody? And Salil Chowdhury?